Clean Energy Switch to Cost Fossil Industry $4 Trillion by 2020

No wonder the push back against clean energy is so strong. A staggering amount of money is at stake. I had not realized quite how much impact that switching to clean energy will have on the dirty energy industry, currently the richest industry on the planet. The IEA 2012 report on global progress on cutting greenhouse gases to prevent the worst effects of climate change includes an estimate of the immediate financial costs of investing in newer cleaner forms of energy in various forms. Over the next eight years, we have to spend money on energy – either way: whether we want to still try for a relatively livable planet or whether we want to roll the dice and let it go to hell after we’re done with it. If we spend it on clean energy, it will take $5 trillion in U.S. dollars, the IEA calculates. But we would save $4 trillion by not buying dirty energy, in just the next eight ...